Illegals: Some Win - You Lose

To private prison companies illegal immigrants are worth their weight in gold – your gold.

Overtly touted as people who only take the jobs that Americans won’t do, illegals are also covertly seen as a profit-center for private prison companies which stand to make more billions of dollars when new laws are finally set in place.

If that were not the case, why would Thurgood Marshall Jr., son of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, have recently bought 4000 more shares at a cost of almost $20,000 in Corrections Corporation of America – a company of which he has been a director for several years?

Coincidentally, Mr. Marshall’s stock purchase, as reported to the SEC on 5 11 2006, coincides with debate on new laws covering illegal immigrants.

And for all the soft-soaping talk about "amnesty" and potential citizenship, there are some teeth in these proposals which are going to bite not only illegal immigrants, but every honest taxpayer in America – because while it’s the private prison companies which will pick up the profits, it is taxpayers who will pick up the tab for everything associated with this new legislation.

Such companies long ago saw the potential in the continually rising prisoner statistics in America, and it is clearly in their interests to see those figures going up. And they are, as reported by Elizabeth White in a May 22 2006 AP piece under the headline "Number of U.S. inmates rises 2 percent"

WASHINGTON -- Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.

The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates."
White reported that "prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, while the other third, nearly 750,000, were in local jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics."

Inmate Numbers Skyrocket

In contrast, according to a Cliff Montgomery article in 3ammagazine.com in 2000: "In 1980, there were only about 50,000 inmates behind bars; but by year-end 1999, thanks in large part to the 'war on drugs', mandatory minimum sentencing, and the 'truth in sentencing' laws that ensure prisoners serve at least 80% of their sentence before they are even considered fit for parole, there were over 200,000 overcrowding America's prisons, jails, and detention centers, making for more than a 300% increase of incarcerations in the last 20 years, according to Department of Justice statistics."

So where does the US fit in the global scheme of things?

According to the United Kingdom’s Home Office World Prison Population List (figures for between 1999 – 2002) "More than 8.75 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world… The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 686 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by the Cayman Islands (664), Russia (638)…"

Fifty thousand in 1980, 200,000 in 1999, 2.2 million in 2006…one in every 136 people behind bars….one quarter of all the world’s prisoners in the United States alone! That’s business. Big business.

Private prison companies such as the Corrections Corporation of America (which trades as CXW on the NYSE) have been around for decades, for the most part operating underneath the public or news media radar, even though atrocities similar to those committed at Abu Ghraib litter their tracks.

Murder by Numbers

3amMagazine and other prestigious publications have reported that untrained or under-trained guards have raped their female charges, set dogs on others, used pepper spray indiscriminately, forced people’s heads into toilets and pulled the chain, stood aside during violent incidents between prisoners, forced themselves on women during transit from one facility to another, and allowed violent criminals to mix with and murder low-risk inmates. Suicides among the abused are not uncommon. Cases of inmates being used as slaves forced to build and remodel the personal property of wardens have occurred regularly over the years. Not to mention kickback schemes between private prison employees and corrupt officials.

Are we living in Iraq?

No – we exported these underpinnings of democracy, this homegrown underbelly of shadowy and bestial behavior, to Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
Long before "terrorism" became the catch-phrase and the ráison du jour for undermining every possible existing freedom in America, this behavior was all but endemic within the American penal system.

Yet while we may decry such behavior over there – and deny that anyone but a few misguided untrained guards were responsible – the fact is that the US prison system, in which private corporations have been so active for so long, has actually been and remains today the breeding ground for violence and recidivism on the one hand – and corporate profits on the other.

To own shares in such companies is by no means illegal. But for some, it is seen as immoral, or at best, hypocritical – especially when those with inside knowledge are aware of and even influential in promoting legislation that will result in a tidy profit for their companies and themselves under the guise of providing a public service.

At Taxpayer Expense

And what this means for illegal immigrants is that while they are being offered the carrot of possible citizenship on the one hand, on the other, many of them will find themselves ensnared by a legalistic net that will put them in special privately operated prisons where they will be housed, tried and deported – all at taxpayer expense – for having done nothing but try to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Worse still, if history is to repeat itself, which it so often does, they are likely to find themselves incarcerated with genuinely nasty individuals who have bought into the jingoistic rhetoric that "illegals" are to be despised and therefore harassed (or worse) at every opportunity.

Such things have happened regularly at facilities operated by private corporations like CCA.

There are others in the business, but for the sake of example, CCA is worth a little investigation because it is one of the largest of its kind.

According to its own web site: "CCA is the nation's largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States, behind only the federal government and three states. The Company currently operates 63 facilities, including 39 company-owned facilities, with a total design capacity of approximately 71,000 beds in 19 states and the District of Columbia. "The Company specializes in owning, operating and managing prisons and other correctional facilities and providing inmate residential and prisoner transportation services for governmental agencies."

CCA is according to its 2006 March quarterly report also constructing two additional correctional facilities in Eloy, Arizona, one that is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2006 and the other that is expected to be completed during the second half of 2007.

In a March 22, 2006 press release CCA advised "the Federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") through a Presolicitation Notice intends to issue a Request for Proposal ("RFP") for Criminal Alien Requirement 6. The BOP expects to contract for approximately 7,000 inmates currently located in a number of facilities located in West Texas."

This would include inmates currently housed at CCA’s 1,225-bed Detention Center in Eden, Texas, "as well as inmates housed in other facilities operated by other private correction providers."

Apparently the Bureau of Prisons is gearing up for an influx of residents – and because of long-standing arrangements with private companies, is looking to farm out some of the load.

Not all board members’ salaries are listed on the CCA site, but some are close to the million-dollar mark.

According to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, the company had annual revenues in 2004 of $1.15 Billion. What profits might it make when it has 71,000 inmates? How much per head?

CCA was founded in 1983 by Tom Beasley, T. Don Hutto and Dr R. Crants. It is based in Nashville Tennessee.

Thurgood Marshall Jr - Impeccable Credentials

So where does Thurgood Marshall Jr fit into the CCA Empire? CCA itself tells us that: "Mr. Marshall has served as a director and member of the Nominating and Governance Committee since December 2002. Marshall is a partner in the law firm of Bingham McCutchen LLP in Washington D.C., and a principal in Bingham Consulting Group LLC,… that assists business clients with communications, political and legal strategies.

"Marshall, the son of the historic Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, has held appointments in each branch of the federal government, including Cabinet Secretary to President Clinton and Director of Legislative Affairs and Deputy Counsel to Vice President Al Gore. In his role under President Clinton, Marshall was the chief liaison between the President and the agencies of the Executive Branch..."

These credentials like those of other board members are impeccable, especially for a company which is in the business of prison privatization. Who wouldn’t want such people on board with all their expertise and political clout? It makes perfect business sense.

After all, while inmate numbers have topped the two million mark and continue to rise even without the enactment (yet) of new immigration laws, so do CCA shares (around $52 May 26 2006 with a 52-week low of $32).. Obviously crime does pay - especially for those who influence the passage of legislation and provide correctional services at the same time. Which is NOT to say that companies like CCA are doing anything illegal - although it is obvious that the more laws that are passed, the more "criminals" there will be, and the more these companies and their shareholders will make.

Goldern Handshake

But it’s not all plain sailing on the CCA board. The SEC has also been advised that "On April 10, 2006, Anthony M. DaDante and Corrections Corporation of America … entered into a separation agreement… establishing the terms of Mr. DaDante’s resignation, effective April 30, 2006, from his position as Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of the Company….the Company will pay Mr. DaDante a cash severance payment equal to his annual base salary, or $245,000."

No reason for the separation is given, but Mr. DaDante gets almost a quarter of a million dollars as a severance settlement after joining the company less than a year ago. Yet his employment agreement (also reported to the SEC) said that if his job was terminated, he wouldn’t get anything extra.

So why did CCA announce his termination and give him a full year’s salary as well? Were there personal incompatibility issues with his new colleagues? That would hardly prompt the company to give him such a golden egg.

Or was there something fishy or less than kosher going on that Mr. DaDante objected to?

Under the terms of the severance agreement those are not questions that Mr. DaDante is at liberty to answer.

Illegals as Commodities

Internal issues aside, the fact is that as a public company, CCA seems to be a very successful one, especially now that illegal immigrants are to be added to its pool of commodities – and that’s what prisoners are to such companies. Commodities to be housed and fed at the least possible cost, tended by guards trained for the least amount of time, and all of it paid for by the company’s one and only customer – the government.

But who does the paying in the long run? Who runs up those billion dollar numbers in the ledgers of companies like CCA?
You – the taxpayer.

So this new bandwagon which is heralded by politicians as a good thing for America and a good thing for illegal aliens is really anything but a good thing for Americans.

In a nutshell, it is a win-win-win-lose scenario.

The government wins (votes), some aliens will win (citizenship and jobs), private prison companies win big (big money) and the fourth unspoken and never mentioned element in this equation – the taxpayer – gets to lose. Big time.

Oh well, what’s new?
It’s the Capitalist way isn’t it, and isn’t that what makes America strong?

Or is it possible that this privatization of prisons might in fact make America’s justice system weak by encouraging, even if unintentionally, an insidious type of corrupt behavior?

If people like Thurgood Marshall Jr. can legally and openly engage in this sort of business investment and activity, why shouldn’t other attorneys and legislators and even judges at all levels around the nation also buy shares in private prison companies?

After all, isn’t that their stock in trade – their expertise – doing what they do best, sending people to prison to ensure the streets of America remain safe for all? Shouldn’t they be rewarded for their diligence on our behalf?

Conflict of Interest

Or if it were discovered that such people were buying private prison stock while having the job of prosecuting or defending so-called criminals, would that be grounds for some sort of public disclosure, if not a genuine full-scale inquiry into what could only be described as a conflict of interest?

That aside, wouldn’t it be refreshing to do something new, or at least something that seems to have been forgotten in all this. Wouldn’t it be uplifting to inject a little humanity and morality into this morass?

For example, could we ask ourselves, who loses most?
In human terms, that would be certain illegal immigrants. Mothers and their children who will find themselves in the Hutto facility and places like it before being sent away.

Some of them may have paid hundreds or thousands of dollars (or sold their bodies) to be trucked across the border from Mexico. The truckers who smuggled them in made money. And the companies like CCA who hold them till they are trucked out again, also make money. As do the people who have shares in CCA and its like.

Modern slave Trade?

Isn’t that just a variation on the old American way – the slave trading way – brought up to speed for the 21st Century?

Isn’t it time for change?

Isn’t it time to understand who stands to lose the most? You.
Shouldn’t you be taking a very close look at what your national, state and local lawmakers are actually voting for - and if you don't like it, vote them out. After all, every law they pass creates yet another criminal offence – which means the lawmakers themselves are both defining and creating criminal behavior. And in the final analysis, the cost of enforcing the law will come out of your pocket and go into those hemmorhaging government coffers and on to CCA and others like them.

In other words, we are the ignorant pot of gold, the supposedly bottomless pocket that politicians and private prison companies are continually dipping into and taking billions out of. For our safety and well being of course…and to help prisoners get rehabilitated at our expense – and to make sure that mothers and children don’t take the jobs we don’t want.

About the author: Michael Knight is a retired reporter and an independent documentary director, author and writer. He is sole proprietor of www.cuddlysoftware.com which sells ebook creation software.